Methods of control usually comprise affecting items to be controlled in any pre-selected order; some of control methods relate to controlling the order of selection.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,216,649A describes a function selection circuit for multi-function timepiece which has a timekeeping circuit, a display device to display output data from the timekeeping circuit, and a function circuit to provide a plurality of functions which can be selected by an external control member in a predetermined sequence. The function selection circuit has a circuit means controlled by the external control member to provide an output to enable a selection of time correction mode from said plurality of functions in the predetermined sequence.
US2012227575A describes an electronic musical instrument having a control device that controls generation of tones by the tone generation device such that tones corresponding to the sound generation instruction group are generated in the order sorted by the sorting device.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,816A describes a peripheral processor having an architecture wherein the function controlling information of a program is separated from portions of the sequence of execution controlling information and each are stored in the form of tables. The function controlling information takes the form of a table including a plurality of function specifying entries. The function execution sequence controlling information takes the form of a table of pointers. Other tables (guidance table, etc.) are also described.
The above references describe controlling some operations according to the order written down in a kind of a “correspondence” table.
General methods of controlling the order of selection will further be discussed using one practical though non-limiting example of the controlled lighting of a stage, where the items to be controlled may be members of a group of lighting instruments (but not only).
Stage lighting is an important component in the production of theatre, dance, opera events, as well as other performance art events.
When controlling light instruments available at a specific concert hall to obtain various light (or lighting) effects, one of the most important things to control is the order of their initiation/selection; the control of the order is usually performed in parallel with controlling parameters of each specific lighting instrument.
To control the lighting instruments, for example to perform some lighting effect on a stage, at least one parameter of the available lighting instruments (fixtures) should be controlled in some pre-determined order. Once the order is known and while it is being implemented by selecting the fixtures according to the order, the above-mentioned light properties may also be controlled by affecting parameters of the selected fixtures.
Just for the information purpose, it can be noted here that parameters of fixtures are specific physical features selected for the fixtures by their manufacturers; the parameters list may comprise such items as Pan, Tilt, a pre-selected color system (say, RGB, CMY), etc. Usually, the parameters do not directly correspond to the light properties. Due to that, in order to control a specific lighting property (for example, intensity or direction of the light beam), a combination of the given physical parameters of a fixture may be controlled together.
As has been noted above, for controlling fixtures and for creating light effects in particular, a designer usually needs to pre-determine the desired order of activating the fixtures. In the presently known control systems, it is performed by pointing out (either by a human operator or by a preliminarily composed program) of exact fixtures in a group, intended for lighting the stage during a performance. According to the program, some of the fixtures may be activated first, other fixtures may be activated there-after and so on in respective successive periods of time.
Let us call the time value “t”, a so-called primitive light function “Eff”, the amplitude “A” and the base (i.e. the constant)—“B”. The output value “Out” of a given fixture parameter can be presented by the following notation:Out=B+A*Eff(t)wherein the effect Eff can be stated as a function of light state, for example sin(t), cos(t), etc.
Let a group comprises N fixtures—say, 10 fixtures having numbers/names/IDs “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”, “5”, “6”, “7”, “8”, “9”, “10”, which are placed in a line above the stage in the order of their numbers.
For each fixture in the group, there will be another number which will tell the order of selection of the fixture for some activity, that another number will be so-called Selection Index SI.
For example, the first selected fixture will get SI=0 (the first one in the order), the second selected fixture: SI=1 (the second one in the order), etc.
Please keep in mind that the first selected fixture (SI=0) may be the fixture numbered “1”, but it may be the one numbered “10”, or any other of the N fixtures.
In order to create a time offset, the notation above may be modified as follows:Out=B+A*Eff(t+SI*T)  [1]
Where B is the base, A is the amplitude, t is time, Eff is a so-called “primitive light function”, T is the value of the time offset. (For example, if the difference between activating different fixtures is 0.5 seconds, T=0.5.)
The same method may be applied to create a base offset or an amplitude offset. A modified formula [1] may be the following:Out=(B+SI*b)+(A+SI*a)*Eff(t+SI*T)
Where “T”, “b”, “a” respectively control the level of time offset, base offset and amplitude offset.
Today, to create an effect (say, the selected lamps produce a red light pulse) which begins in the center and ends on the edges of the stage (i.e., of the line of fixtures lighting the stage), a user usually selects fixtures in quite a complex order. For example, when selecting the order of activating 10 fixtures, the designer/user may “call” them in the following order:
Fixture numbers N: 5, 6, 4, 7, 3, 8, 2, 9, 1, 10.
Selection index SI: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Or the fixtures may be called as follows:
Fixture numbers N: 5 & 6; 4 & 7; 3 & 8; 2 & 9; 1 & 10.
Selection index SI: 0 & 0; 1 & 1; 2 & 2; 3 & 3; 4 & 4;
The above two examples present two options of what we call “a mirror order” effect.
In the first option, values of SI will be different for each of the fixtures (i.e., they are activated one after another). However, in the second option the designer assigns two different fixtures of one pair to the same value of SO (to the same selection index SI), so that two fixtures of a pair are activated simultaneously, while the pairs are activated successively.
A programmer must therefore handle N different fixtures (in other words, N IDs of the fixtures), and to introduce the required SI (the selection index), so as to bring N and SI into association suitable for the desired effect.
The described technology is complex and reminds a “table” approach mentioned above. Moreover, when an effect is programmed for a specific group of N fixtures, that effect cannot be automatically transformed/adapted to another stage where the group of fixtures comprises a different number thereof.
To the best of the Applicant's knowledge, all known lighting control consoles have no effective solution for the above-identified problem.